


Forty-seven cups of tea

by knitmeapony



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitmeapony/pseuds/knitmeapony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from the youth of Yuri Petrov.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forty-seven cups of tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lintwhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lintwhite/gifts).



> Happy yuletide! I tried to stick to the notes as much as I could.

He did not yet quite understand that things had been arranged for him.

He sat at the kitchen table across from his mother, and they were each drinking tea. He had made his own, carefully standing on a step near the stove; Mr. Maverick had made hers, and had brought some for each of the police who had arrived at the call, at the death of his father.

So he waited to be condemned, waited for the inevitable time when they would turn to him and tell him it was time, that they would take him away from this place.

To be away from this place would be a relief.

But it did not happen, and he found he had nothing to do, no way to move. His feet did not touch the floor and the chair was cutting into his knees, and he waited as they grew numb. Waited as the police gathered outside, waited as Mr. Maverick joined them and then only he returned.

"You have nothing to worry about," he said, and as he put the empty cups of tea in the sink, Yuri counted them. Eight, nine counting his mother's.

And one for him, a different cup entirely.

\-----

They had always treated him differently at school, but now there was a reverence to it that he hated.

Still, it was not without it's little joys. Another pretty girl had put a cup of tea into his hands -- his second this lunch, his seventh this week -- and gave him a sad little smile as she ran off, back to her friends.

They all treated him this way, now, gave him little gifts and honored him as they could, giving him kind nicknames and letting him hold court at the playground. Somehow they felt his father's death had given him all the wisdom a hero could want, and each time a question came up, some dispute they could not settle, they would ask him what to do.

Even the teachers.

It was a little goodness in his life, holding those courts; he wrapped his mind around each problem carefully, and to the equasion he would add little variables. This boy was known to hit those smaller than him. This girl did wrong by another for no reason but false rumors. These teachers were married -- not to each other -- and would wait for their divorces before being together.

Good things and bad. He would add these to his judgements, though he had learned not to voice them aloud. What was it that made people believe that their past acts should not be judged, that their ways should not be questioned?

Why did people not see that their worth as a person mattered in all things?

He closed his eyes and breathed in the steam from the tea. Green, with hints of orange. A little smile came to his lips, and he was sure everyone saw. Next time, for the next eighth and ninth cups of tea, they would bring him green, with just a hint of orange.

And he would add it to their tally, one more mark of kindness towards their worth.

\----

It was a bar, and everyone else was drinking. Everyone but him. They had their wine and beer and worse, and he just had tea. Cups and cups and endless tea. He'd lost count, now -- they'd been there since the place opened and noon, and now it was dark -- but there were no-doubt many. Ten, perhaps fifteen.

School these past years had been a strange mix of times. Visits from Mr. Maverick, from old classmates, from the girl he would allow, now and then, to kiss his cheek and tell him how brave and beautiful he was.

And in between, this lot. These others who had all gone into the law for reasons he did not care to consider. For money, for power. He raised his eyes to the group sitting around him, those who had treated him well enough that he allowed them to count him as a friend. Not an innocent man about them, and they would make poor enough heroes.

If they made it at all, that is. One of their classmates came bursting in the door with a stack of envelopes. "They're here," he said. "He let me have them all." Examination results, and no doubt by his posture, the boy had been able to see inside the envelopes he now handed out to their owners.

Sounds of relief and joy came from most of his friends -- and, by turns, some misery. They had all passed, that was no surprise, but some of them had passed more handily than others.

Yuri sat with his envelope in his hand and contemplated it. It showed no signs of tampering, not like some of the others, and when he lifted his eyes they were all watching him.

"Go on, Yuri. Open it."

They were all as afraid for his results as for their own. He had been the one, these past years, to push them to study, to drive them to do more and better. He'd been the one they'd put their faith in, and they were all holding their breath, hoping it hadn't been a poor decision.

He liked the attention, and he held it well; slowly picking up his tea spoon and slicing open the end of the envelope with his handle. When he pulled out the paper, a second one fell out as well.

It was gold, and he didn't have to open the rest to know how he'd done.

Gold. An offer from the city, a position out of school. Only the top ten got such offers, and his friends whooped with their own vindication. They'd chosen an excellent leader. They hadn't failed in this, at least.

He favored them all with almost-smiles, just a ghost of an expression really, one that did not touch his eyes. They were happy for themselves. He would allow them to be.

\------

The clerkship was dull. Dull and ordinary, writing ordinary work about ordinary cases. There were times, even, when he didn't look at the file before passing judgement. His fingers worked across the keyboard, entering in his suggested judgement on instinct and rote repetition alone. His eyes were watching the news, where another NEXT had taken the lead on that show of theirs, this time by questionable means.

Even heroes had their troubles.

He frowned and turned back to the case in front of him. Just a simple divorce, but for the first time in a long time he opened the file, tried to get a sense of the people. He had given up much for his wife, he had moved away from his home to live with her parents, had found a lesser job for her.

Had taken his brideprice out of her skin.

It wasn't official in the file, there was nothing saying that he had laid a hand on her, but Yuri knew well how to read between the lines and see what he'd been doing to her. There were mentions of trips Yuri knew had never been taken; she had a burn on her arm that would not heal, and Yuri could see it in his minds eye as her husband poured his tea there when he was displeased, scalding and re-scalding the skin until it was useless. Five cups of tea. Ten. Days in a row, or just before it healed.

Yuri knew the truth. He always had that gift, to see through to the root of the matter. Here, though, his hands were tied. No matter what he saw, how much he knew, he could not use it in his judgement.

He frowned down at the paperwork again and glanced up at the silent news, just in time to see a photograph of his father slide by. Honored hero. Honored hero. His jaw set, and he could feel the paper in his hands turn to ash in an instant.

This man, this man was no better than his father, but also no worse. He deserved no better end than his father --

\-- but also no worse. Yuri rubbed the ash over his hands until they were black as he considered this. In this paper, there were names. Addresses. Numbers. Things he could use to find this man. Ways he could change the fate of this woman, who had done wrong -- but much less wrong than her husband.

His door opened without anyone knocking and he glanced up, sharply. No one was to disturb him when he wrote opinions -- but of course, Mr. Maverick rarely believed the rules applied to him.

"I have a new job for you," Mr. Maverick said. "I have arranged it. You begin on Monday." Yuri knew better than to question that.

"Thank you, sir." Now he would not even be tied to this case. And now the man could have his fate. For the first time in a long time he felt something stir in the normally empty pit of his stomach. Perhaps it was hope. Perhaps it was vindication.

As he washed the ashes from his hands, he found he liked the colors. The blue of the ink, the white of his skin, and the thin rivulets of black that were sluicing away and down the sink. He knew there would be more ashes on his skin soon, perhaps even tonight, and he glanced up at himself in a mirror and smiled.


End file.
